Elia had never truly understood how people managed to label their emotions.
Joy, anger, shame… all of it felt like a foreign lexicon to her, a language spoken only by others. In her, feelings took different shapes: subcutaneous tension, slower breathing, sharper calculations. An internal order. A mechanism.
She was never truly "happy."
She was stable.
Calibrated.
Except when it came to Allia.
Allia was… different.
An anomaly in her circuitry.
A presence around which everything became more vibrant, more focused. Not warmth she didn't feel that. But a kind of visceral, almost identity-rooted attachment.
Allia wasn't her sister.
She was an extension.
A limb of her body.
A thought breathing outside of her.
That was why she didn't like Marc.
Well… "didn't like" was too vague for Elia. Marc introduced a parasite into a perfect ecosystem. An unpredictable, uncontrollable element exerting influence on Allia an influence only she should possess.
She hadn't panicked when Marc and Allia officially got together.
Panic wasn't something she truly felt.
But in the days that followed, an internal spike had ignited.
An irrepressible need to understand Marc, to analyze him, to dissect him psychologically.
So she began what she simply called: observation.
Most people don't realize how exposed they are.
Marc was no exception.
With one simple search of his social media, Elia already had access to:
his old accounts he never deletedhis public commentshis geotagged photoshis old university party picturesthe likes he left on certain girls' postshis regular activity timeshis digital habits
She didn't even need professional tools.
Just patience.
Logic.
And that methodical obsession flowing in her like a natural reflex.
She created a fake account discreet, faceless, with no digital past. A shadow among others. With it, she silently followed Marc's friends, colleagues, and old classmates. She noted interactions, activity times, response frequencies.
In another tab, she browsed semi-public university records he was listed in.
In another, forums where he occasionally left comments.
In another, a software she had coded herself, a sort of automatic profiler, a data aggregator.
Marc took shape before her eyes.
Precise, cold.
A perfect map.
The more she learned, the more a low rumble stirred inside her.
He had that smooth, slightly charming smile.
That tendency to be helpful.
Too helpful.
Men like that… she recognized them.
They loved validation.
They loved being desired.
They loved playing both sides.
And Allia was falling.
She always fell with that soft naïveté Elia had never understood.
She wanted to pull her out of it.
Not out of jealousy no.
Out of natural order.
Balance had to be maintained.
One night, Allia had been asleep for an hour when Elia, sitting at the desk in their apartment, reopened Marc's social media.
She enlarged a photo of him smiling broadly, surrounded by colleagues.
Her eyes moved over him the way one observes an exceptionally ordinary insect.
"Smile too wide," she murmured to herself.
"Eyes slightly off-center."
"Left hand slightly tense."
"Trying to impress. Always."
Every detail became data.
A variable.
A piece of the puzzle.
She clicked "Tagged Photos."
Then "Liked Comments."
Then "Recent Activity."
A girl appeared often.
Always the same one.
Always a little too close in old party videos.
Elia wrote her name down in a file.
Then another.
Then another.
A near-clinical routine.
As the days went by, Elia infiltrated Marc's digital life even deeper.
She knew the time he ate lunch.
The routes he used to get home.
The cafés where he sometimes grabbed a drink in the evening.
She didn't even hide it from herself:
She was tracking him.
Meticulously.
Not physically not yet.
No need.
She already knew too much.
And the more she learned, the more an absolute, unshakeable conclusion crystallized in her mind:
He lies.
He will lie.
And he will hurt Allia.
She was certain.
She didn't have the proof yet, but she had the truth.
She always had the truth.
That evening, Allia returned home late from work.
Tired.
Exhausted.
Marc had told her he couldn't see her tonight "last-minute meeting," supposedly and Allia had felt a strange pinch in her chest.
Elia, however, had smiled silently.
It confirmed her calculations.
Allia stepped into the living room, dropped her bag, let out a long sigh.
Elia looked at her from the corner of her eye, a gaze so calm it was almost unsettling.
"Another heavy day?" she asked softly.
Allia nodded.
"I wanted to see him tonight… but it's fine."
Elia gently closed the laptop in front of her.
The soft click echoed like a decision.
She stood up, crossed the room, and sat beside her sister.
She placed a light hand on her shoulder.
Simple.
Almost tender.
"You know," she began, "I've been observing him a little. Marc."
Allia frowned.
"Why?"
"Because he matters to you."
It wasn't a lie.
At least… not for Elia.
"And…?" Allia asked, a bit defensive.
Elia took her time.
Measured each word.
Each inflection.
"There are things… I don't like about him."
Allia sighed, half amused, half annoyed.
"You never like my boyfriends, Elia."
"No."
"That's not true," she replied calmly."Some… I found acceptable."
It was false.
All of them had irritated her deeply.
Because they took up space.
Because they pulled Allia out of their shared orbit.
"Marc, though…" she continued, fixing Allia with a piercing gaze, "he's playing a role."
Always.
With everyone.
A chill ran down Allia's spine.
"Stop. That's ridiculous."
Elia gave a faint smile.
A barely visible line, yet loaded with certainty.
"Maybe…" she murmured.
"Maybe not."
Then she rose, as if nothing had been said.
But the words remained.
Planted.
Pressed into Allia's mind like pins.
Elia didn't need more.
The seed was planted.
And she knew she felt it in that cold place at the center of her chest that soon, very soon…
That seed would bloom.